A Dinner of Herbs (The Bannaman Legacy) Read online

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said…well, you heard me, she had a bairn about eight months after you were gone.’

  ‘In the name of God! Kate, what are you sayin’?’

  ‘I’m not sayin’ anything, only stating a fact. She married Arthur Poulter, an’ quick. He was another one of Bannaman’s men. But the child came seven months after the wedding. Still, it might have been early.’

  ‘Aw, Kate.’

  ‘Don’t keep sayin’ Aw, Kate, like that as if you were a monk out of a monastery.’ She laughed now, and after a moment he said, ‘Bannaman. What’s he doing now?’

  At this the old woman got up and going to a black oak cupboard opposite the fireplace she took out a platter on which was bread and a cheese dish, and placed them on the bare wooden table that stood in the centre of the room. She then returned to the cupboard and brought out the remains of a chicken and a wooden bowl of green stuff before she spoke again, saying, ‘Things have been quiet for the last years. Yet, when I say quiet, I don’t know what I mean. Perhaps I mean he’s left me alone. But things have happened. There was an outcry five years gone when the coach carryin’ the wages to the mill was held up and the guard wounded. He didn’t die, but he won’t walk straight again. It was the Christmas pay out and the roads were frozen hard. The coach was carrying all of three hundred guineas, they said. The bank teller and Gabriel Roystan, the mill clerk, they were both knocked out.’

  ‘Did they find the culprits?’

  ‘No, not really. It snowed heavily that night and went on for almost a week and later, when it thawed, they found Falsy Read. I don’t know if you remember him. Nobody could say he had anything to do with the hold-up ’cos he hadn’t a penny on him, and anyway he was found near the edge of the quarry, and that’s some distance from the coach road. But now, the odd thing is, three days ago, Gabriel Roystan, the clerk, the very one who was in that particular hold-up, goes missing and apparently the wages with him.

  ‘You see, they’ve devised different ways of bringing the wages in. They hired the militia for a time, but for the past year, I understand, one man alone has carried it on horseback but taken different roads. This has been ordered at the last minute as a precaution. Now you remember Gabriel Roystan, he had ideas above the station for a clerk, but after his wife died he seemed to go to pieces.’

  ‘And you say Roystan has disappeared?’

  ‘Aye, that’s what I said; it’s my bet he’s already on that sea you think so much about, ’cos where was his horse discovered? In Newcastle. I got it from Bill who got it from the carrier who came in from Hexham around noon. In Newcastle mind. And what goes out of Newcastle? Why, ships. Bill says some fellow found the animal tied up on the waterfront. But there’s one thing I can’t understand, he might have been a bit above himself, Gabriel Roystan, an’ not the type I’d take to at all, but he was God-fearin’, a hard worker, and loved his son. The lad is a year or so older than yours there.’ She pointed to where the boy was still sleeping, and then, as if on an afterthought, she asked, ‘What do you call him?’

  ‘Roddy. Full name Rodney Percival Greenbank.’ He smiled. ‘After his grandfather. It’s a mouthful that, Rodney Percival. It was his mother’s wish.’

  She sighed. ‘’Tis a mouthful. Well now, getting back to the reason for your visit, Peter. What do you intend to do with the lad? ’Cos that’s why you’re here I think. Am I right?’

  ‘Yes, yes, you’re right, Kate.’

  ‘Well, let me tell you afore you go on an’ say another word, I’m past lookin’ after bairns, and it would be no life for a bairn in this house, me with me funny ways, an’ the only other child hereabouts is little Mary Ellen Lee and she but five. Although she’s got a tongue that’ll clip clouts an’ you would swear that she was ten if a day. I don’t know who she takes after, for neither of them are great talkers, or doers for that matter, plodders both of them, but not wee Mary Ellen. I said from she first gave a bawl that she had a part missing, that’s the only thing that stops her from being a lad.’

  She laughed, showing her discoloured but whole mouthful of teeth, and he laughed with her. ‘You’re a wise woman, Kate,’ he said, ‘and it’s you I’d like to leave him with. But nevertheless, I understand how you feel. Still, if Bill and Jane will take him on for a time they won’t be out of pocket, I promise them that. But I’d like you to keep an eye on him, Kate. There are things you can teach him that no-one else can. You learned them to me, and that’s all of thirty years ago an’ you’ve gained, I know, in wisdom since. I’d hoped he’d benefit from it.’

  ‘Aye, well, I can promise you that I’ll keep an eye on him an’ tell him the paths that lead straight in his mind, and where health is to be got from the ground. But that’s as much as I’ll be able to do for him; like you, he’ll go his own way. Now come on, wake him up, then sit up and have this bite. And let me say again, Peter, my eyes are glad to see you.’

  It was six o’clock when Peter said to Kate, ‘We’ll take a dander over to Bill’s and see if he’s in favour of taking on another young ’un. I can’t see that he wouldn’t if he’s only got the one. Can you?’

  ‘It’ll be up to them. If the lad there had been a girl now, they might have welcomed him straight away as a companion for Mary Ellen, because to my mind she’s too much amidst the grown-ups and is as old-fashioned as a maiden lady. Still, Bill might see it differently, bein’ a lad.’ She looked down on Roddy, laughing as she did so, saying now, ‘That’s one thing you can’t change in life, laddy, the way you’re made. Change your mind, aye, but that’s about all with regard to yourself. You’re quiet. You’ve had little to say for yourself.’ She now looked up at his father, saying, ‘Is he always as tongue-tied as this?’

  ‘No, by gum, no. At least I haven’t found him so. It’s strange, all this is.’

  ‘Aye. Aye. Well, away so you can get yourself back afore dark, that is unless you want to take a lantern.’

  ‘Me take a lantern round the quarry, Kate! You jokin’?’

  ‘No, I’m not jokin’, but as you remember there were parts giving way in your day. Two years gone, after a heavy rainfall, there was a big bite taken out of the east side. You see, they took more stone out of the far side to build the flue. And even along this side the walls have broken away in different parts until the edge has almost reached the path. And there’s water lies in the bottom as never before.’

  ‘I noted that the path is quite well worn. Do you get a lot of people coming to you now for your herbs an’ such?’

  ‘No, I don’t. Nor do I want. If you had noted so much, you should have noted an’ all that the path turns away up the ride, the straight where they used to break in the Galloways for the mine. They still fetch them there at times. Yet most of the farmers have got so rich doin’ horse dealing on the side that they do the breakin’ in their own fields. Even those with stints seem to manage it an’ all. It’s mostly gypsies that use it. But they don’t last long around here. Anyway, if you’re goin’, get along with you. I’ll have a shakedown ready for you both by the time you get back and a hot bite in the pan, because the nights are comin’ in chilly now.’

  She stood at the door and looked up at the sky, saying, ‘There should be a moon later on. It was on its back all last week, and so we had rain for five days without let up. But for the last couple of nights it’s steadied itself. So if you do lose your way after all this time you won’t need a lantern.’ She smiled widely, and he, too, laughed before pausing on the pathway and looking first to one side and then to the other over her garden, saying, ‘’Tis still a tangle, Kate. And I see’—he pointed to the far end of the land where some chickens were scratching—‘you still keep the bantams.’

  ‘Aye, and add to that six geese in the field beyond and two goats who make me never want for milk or cheese.’

  ‘You’re a clever woman, Kate. I always said so.’ He jerked his chin at her before turning and holding out his hand to his son.

  They went through th
e gate and crossed the hollow and up the rise that led to the quarry, neither of them speaking. It wasn’t until they were walking in the shadow of the high brushwood that bordered the path that the boy said, quietly, ‘Da, I…I don’t want to stay here. I…I want to go back with you.’

  Peter sighed. ‘Now, now, you don’t know how lucky you are. Wait till you see where you’ll likely be stayin’. They’re fine people, and you heard what Kate…Mrs Makepeace said about little Mary Ellen. She could make a fine playmate for…’

  ‘I don’t like girls, Da. When I went down to the quay it was always with the lads.’

  ‘Aye’—his voice was harsh now—‘what kind of lads? Scum. Riff-raff. Where would you have been if I had left you with them, eh? Had I gone back to sea and left you there, where would you have landed? I can tell you where you would have landed, in the House of Correction, and you know what place that is, don’t you?’

  The boy swallowed deeply, then muttered, ‘I…I just want to be with you, Da.’

  Peter’s voice was softer now. ‘I know that,’ he said, ‘and I want to be with you, but it isn’t to be so. I’ve got to earn a livin’ and I can’t earn it on the land, such is me nature.’ Then he added more brightly, ‘But me trips will be shorter, some of them just a matter of weeks, both ways, no distance, and then come December when the rivers are covered with ice, I’ll have to stay on shore, and I’ll make me way out here every weekend.’

  ‘You’ll come every weekend?’

  ‘Aye, I will.’

  ‘When will that be, Da?’

  ‘Oh, well now, not very long, just a matter of weeks. We’ll soon be into October, then after November, well, no more sailing to Norway.’ He pressed the small hand within his own and they walked on silently now until Peter stopped abruptly and looked along the path branching off to where it curved away into high brushwood, and more to himself than to the boy he said, ‘Well, well, how trees can grow in eight years. I could still see through there afore I left, and walk through, but look at it now, it’s thick with undergrowth. And the ride…’ He took some steps backwards and shielded his eyes against the setting sun. ‘The ride, as she said, may be used still but it doesn’t look half the width it was in my time, no, not half. Well’—again he sighed—‘time doesn’t stand still. It’s an old sayin’, but nevertheless true.’ He grinned down on his son as he said, ‘Me old captain always used to be saying that. “Get on with it, lads. Get on with it. Time doesn’t stand still, an’ it’s runnin’ away from you. So put a move on and catch up with it. Up with you! Up you go! Reach it afore it passes the top of the mast.”’ He shook his head slowly. ‘He was a man, a tartar, but a man. Still, thank God I won’t be under him again.’ Then in a highly jocular mood he cried, ‘Come on, I’ll race you to the top of the quarry. See yonder, that great pile of stones? That was once a barn. That marks the head of the quarry. One—’ He took a stance and made the boy do the same, then crying, ‘Two, three,’ they both ran along the uneven path, and Peter, seeing that the boy was running well away from the quarry edge, allowed him to outpace him.

  At the ruined barn they both leaned against a crumbling wall and Peter, his chest heaving much more than was necessary, said, ‘By! You’ve got a pair of legs on you. ’Tis me that must be getting old. No-one has ever beaten me afore.’

  ‘Never, Da?’

  ‘Never. That’s my word on it, honest.’

  It was ten minutes later when they reached the dip and Bill Lee’s cottage. And again Peter stopped as he became aware of another change that had taken place during his absence, for what had been a tumbledown one-room shanty was now what could be called a smart little house with outbuildings attached, and as he gazed in admiration he thought, That’s enterprise for you. What one could do another could, but had any of them before bothered to enlarge their cottages over the years? It wasn’t for lack of material, for there were stones all around for the taking. Of course they had to be carried, and for that you needed a horse and cart. And to be fair, for many people years ago the only means for transporting anything had been their legs and a barrow.

  Hurriedly now, he went towards the cottage door, and finding it closed, he knocked sharply on it, crying jovially, ‘Come out of that and show yourself, Bill Lee! Or you, Jane!’

  He waited, a smile on his face, but when there was no response he turned to the boy, saying, ‘Well, well, they must be out.’

  He now tried the door, and when it did not move under his push, he said, ‘’Tis bolted. They definitely are out. It’s something new, though, to find a door bolted in these parts. But then, going by the outside there must be something to steal on the inside.’

  Looking about him now, he said, ‘Well, well, they’ll surely be back afore dark. Gone to visit her people likely. Must have been on early shift to be free at this time. Come on.’ He jerked his chin towards the boy. ‘We can have a walk round the fields in the meantime, but before that we’ll see what he’s got in his stint.’

  He found that Bill Lee had a dozen chickens, two pigs, one heavy with a coming litter which he pointed out to the boy, saying, ‘How many wee ’uns has she got inside her?’

  ‘Two, Da.’

  ‘Two? Ten, twelve, perhaps.’

  ‘No, Da.’

  ‘Aye. Anyway, when you’re livin’ here you’ll be able to see them born. It’s a fine sight to see animals born. And over there, look, sheep. I can see four of them. My, my! He’s done well for himself. And look at that patch there, gooseberry bushes if I’m not mistaken, and apple trees. Well! Well! Well!’

  So they spent the next half-hour admiring the land and its occupants around the cottage, and when there was still no sign of the owners and the twilight was deepening fast, he said, ‘Could be they’re away for the night; must be someone ill or dead. Anyway, there’s always the morrow. Come on, we’ll hie home. Did you hear what I said there, lad? I said we’ll hie home. Funny that I should think of Kate’s place as home. Yet not so; I spent many a day in that cottage or trailing after her skirts, picking herbs for her. Come on, come on.’

  When they entered the wood leading to the long ride, the twilight turned to night and the boy walked closely against his father’s side, his hand pressed tightly into the big fist; and the silence and the darkness contributed to a fear that made itself felt through his father’s hand, and Peter, drawing him close to him, said, ‘Never be afraid of quietness, lad, learn to like it, nor be afeared of the dark because in the dark your wits become sharper. You understand?’

  ‘Yes, Da.’ Yet he didn’t know what he understood except that at the moment if he hadn’t been with his father he would have taken to his heels and run out of this darkness into where there was more light.

  ‘Look.’ Peter pointed upwards. ‘There she comes, as Kate prophesied. She was always a good one with the moon, was Kate. Do you know, they used to come and ask her what the weather would be like on Fair Day. And she’s cured more with her medicines than I can count, both animal and human. Although at one time…well, people are more enlightened now, at least some, please God.

  ‘Ah, look. Now isn’t that a bonny sight!’ They had come out of the wood and to a gap in the brushwood that bordered the quarry and, pointing downwards to where the reflection of the moon was just touching the edge of the water at the bottom of the quarry, he said, ‘’Tis a bonny sight to see the moon washing itself in the water. I’ve watched her riding alongside us many a night skipping over the waves. Aye. Aye, and the white clouds chasing her. But I must admit there were times when I didn’t appreciate the sight like as now, for then, at those times, my belly would have been crying out for a decent meal, something not running with maggots; or I was so froze I longed to die. Aye.’ He looked down at the shadowy face of the boy now as he added, ‘Would you believe that, your da longed to die because he was so cold and hungry? I hope you never want to go to sea, lad. But come, look, the bank’s clear, let’s sit down here for a minute and enjoy that sight, ’cos it won’t last long; she’ll b
e scudding away hiding herself behind black skirts in a minute or so. And the night is young yet, and—’ His voice dropped to a soft whisper now as he lowered himself down onto the grassy verge of the quarry, saying, ‘I want to remember just this, you and me sittin’ on the bank where I sat many a time as a lad looking down on the same scene. I never thought one day I would have a fine son of me own.’ He pulled the boy’s head against his chest, and like this they sat quietly looking to where the moon appeared to be skipping along the edge of the water at the far side of the quarry.

  It was Peter who heard the sound of horses’ hooves first, and he gently pressed the boy’s head away from him as he swivelled round on the grass, peering backwards into the dark towards the far end of the ride. After a second or so he got to his feet, saying as he did so, ‘There’s a horse, or horses, coming. You’d better look out in case we are trampled. Come on’—he pulled the boy up—‘we’ll keep close in until they pass.’

  He now pulled his son across the pathway and into the shrubbery opposite and waited for the rider to pass. The horse, he realised, was walking, and slowly, but his ear, which in his youth had been alerted to all sounds of the woodlands and the fells, realised there were footsteps accompanying the rider. He decided he wouldn’t speak in case he should frighten both the rider and the horse, and part of his mind told him that the rider might have a gun: the man could be out poaching, and he didn’t want to be taken for a keeper.

  When the sound of the horse’s hooves and the footsteps stopped some little way to the left of him, he warned the boy to silence by gripping his shoulder; and turning his own head to the side and his ear cocked, he listened to the low voices that he guessed weren’t more than a dozen feet from him along the path. The sounds that came to him were, he recognised, from voices indulging in question and answer, but he couldn’t make out the words until, his head poked further forward, he heard one say, ‘Are you sure of the place?’